I’M IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME

Fighter Diary by Jack Catterall

In the next instalment of our exclusive diary columns by the fighters, British title challenger Jack Catterall gives us the lowdown on his forthcoming clash with champion Tyrone Nurse in Leeds on October 21…

I HAVE HEARD a number of people describe my British title shot against Tyrone Nurse as a breakthrough or defining fight but, for me, it is not one I will treat differently to any other.

I do know I am in for a tough fight and Tyrone is a good champion, but I look at every fight in the same way, like I would if it was a world title fight.

So in that respect it is just another fight.

After making a bit of a name for myself early on in my career by beating unbeaten domestic rivals Tom Stalker and Nathan Brough – aside from fighting Martin Gethin last time out and Joe Hughes last year – I fought a lot of international opponents inbetween times.

There were some real tough ones, but you don’t get the same respect for winning because not so many people have heard of them.

Now I have got a big all-UK fight again, which is great because it gets a lot of people interested and it should be exciting.

My so-called claim to fame for a long time was being the young fighter who sparred with Mayweather and Canelo, but I didn’t listen to too much of that and took it all with a pinch of salt.

The thing in this game is, with one below-par performance people write you off and after one good one you are the next big thing.

Perceptions of you change by the week, but it doesn’t bother me.

I am sure when I beat Tyrone it’ll be he had this or that problem in training, or he should have stopped him earlier and can’t believe he only beat him on points.

So what, is what I say.

As long as I know how I feel and everybody around me knows what journey we’re on, regardless of what everybody else thinks, it doesn’t really matter to me.

There was some flak flying in my direction last year when I withdrew from a mandatory challenge to face Tyrone with good reason.

Tyrone and his dad keep saying nobody wants to fight him and that I pulled out. The reason I pulled out was because, at the time, I had no coach and no manager.

The fight was proposed ten weeks out when I hadn’t even decided who I was going to train with, so I wasn’t going to go into a fight like this with no team in place.

Even I’m not that daft!

Now I am in one hundred per cent the right place at the right time.

I’ve had two fights since then and when the fight got proposed again, with me being made mandatory, it is now a no-brainer.

Of course I was sick at the time over having to pull out of a fight I had been craving for and working hard towards but, at the same time, everything happens for a reason and it has come back around now at the perfect time.

More to come from Jack’s diary next week